


Dulce (sweet)

by wobblyheadeddollcaper



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Established Relationship, Foreshadowing, Latin puns, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblyheadeddollcaper/pseuds/wobblyheadeddollcaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Not a scratch on me.” Laurens looks Hamilton in the eye, lifting an eyebrow wryly. “Ad victor Laurea. You should check me out, see what you’ve won.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dulce (sweet)

**Author's Note:**

> Latin in italics. All Latin translations in end notes. A very slight sequel to previous fic 'Burn', but stands alone.

It’s been months, weeks, days or hours, depending on how you count it. Months since it’s been warm or private enough to strip off each other’s clothes and make love skin to skin. Weeks since the last time Laurens thrust his hand down Hamilton’s breeches to touch him, quick and inelegant and as necessary as breathing. Days since they’ve kissed, since before Laurens’ ill-fated sabotage mission set off. Hours since they grasped hands, almost like a handshake except for the way Hamilton’s fingers stroked over Laurens’ palm as they let go, like a blind fortune-teller seeking his future.

The door is wooden, and has a lock, and is the third most beautiful thing Laurens has ever seen. The second was three hours ago, Lafayette and Hamilton with a cavalry company coming over the hill to rescue him and his men. The most beautiful is standing in front of him now, bruised and dusty.

He’d imagined their next time alone together happening in any of a thousand different ways; frantic, focused, Laurens on his knees, Hamilton bent over a table, clothes torn off or pushed aside or magically vanished. He’s imagined anatomically improbable, athletic sexual marathons and lightning-hot, quick fucks. He forgot, or couldn’t bear to imagine, how vulnerable Hamilton makes him feel.

Laurens forgot that Hamilton can call the heart out of his chest. He forgot how good it is just to touch, to hold, and so he didn’t imagine that their reunion would be this… measured. Hamilton’s kisses are slow, painstaking, and so tender he almost can’t bear it. His blood is still thrumming from the fight. He grinds his hips to push against Hamilton’s thigh and opens his mouth to turn the kiss heated and filthy.

“Go easy on me, Laurens,” Hamilton says, breaking off, his voice hesitant. “We’ve got all night, just-“

“Whatever you want,” Laurens says, stepping back a few inches. Hamilton pushes himself through discomfort and even pain without complaint, so Laurens has learned never to ignore his rare requests to slacken the pace.

“Just give me a moment,” Hamilton says, stroking his fingers over Laurens’ face, infinitely gentle. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute there.”

Laurens catches one of his hands and kisses the dust from his fingertips.

“You saved me. I’m fine, I’m here.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“Not a scratch on me,” Laurens promises. He looks Hamilton in the eye, lifting an eyebrow wryly. “ _Ad victor Laurea_. You should check me out, see what you’ve won.”

“Well, you must be all right if you’re punning at me,” Hamilton says, smiling. “My Laurens. I won you in battle, huh?”

“Yeah,” Laurens says, kissing his way up Hamilton’s neck, as slowly as he can.

“And what kind of reward might I be in line for?”

“Whatever you want,” Laurens says, low and filthy, a promise.

*

There are some memories Laurens takes out when he’s alone and carefully examines, as though each one is something fragile that he intends to draw in painstaking detail. These memories are the evidence he turns to on cold nights, guarding him from the creeping fear that he will wake up one day to find Hamilton looking at him as if at a stranger, all their romance vanished like sugar after rain. If it happened Laurens would have no standing to demand reasons, no polite explanation for his grief. The hell of it is that he can understand the reasons why Hamilton might leave him; most of them sound, logical, political reasons colder than the dust of the grave, and as impossible to refute.

His memories are smooth with handling, much cherished, and terribly private. Some of them he’s sure Hamilton wouldn’t remember, they’re so brief. There are memories made in the dark, like the sound of Hamilton’s voice toneless and ragged with need, that make him shudder with satisfaction and desire. There are moments of helpless affection, when he's been pulled close and held tight. Most of all there are words, whispered or written, and always accompanied by a look of desperate attention, asking 'do you understand?’ It means something, he thinks, that Hamilton is so intent that Laurens should understand. Surely Hamilton wouldn't waste this much breath, this much pain (for much of what he explains is not easy to discuss), if he didn't mean something by it.  
  
It could be years before the war ends, there's no sense in hoping or despairing yet. _Carpe diem, dulce est pro Alexander amori_. He can leave decorum out of it, for love is the enemy of dignity as surely as it is the enemy of death.

This morning, a slow dawn after a whole night together, is one he will keep in his memory to look at when the world is dark. The warm tangle of limbs under covers, the animal comfort of waking up sated and smiling with Hamilton already in his arms. The peace deeper than dreams that he feels, trading honey-slow kisses on a shared pillow.

*

"What the hell does _patria_ have to do with it?" Hamilton demands later that morning, as they pack away their things and debate the merits and demerits of various patriotic slogans they can use to drum up financial support. "Most of us weren't born in this land, and the nation we hope to build isn't actually here yet. _Pro filii mori, pro fratria mori_."

" _Pro amica mori_."

"Always getting your personal feelings mixed in with your politics," Hamilton grumbles fondly.

"What's more personal than fathers, brothers and sons? Personal doesn't mean unimportant, anyway. _Pro elutheria mori_ – what’s more personal than la Liberte?" His French is much better than his rusty Latin, with all the practice he's been getting en Français.

"Which is all very well, but the dead are notoriously bad at arguing their points of view. You have to live if you want to fight your own cause. A dead man is just a martyr for someone else to preach sermons on. _Dulce et decorum est pro victoria vivat_."

"You'd argue my case for me, wouldn’t you?" Laurens says, smiling to turn it into a joke.

Alexander gives a short, unhappy laugh.

"Not if it encourages you in the kind of selfish stupidity that would leave me arguing alone,” he says bitterly. He bites his lip. “ _Pro amor vivat_. If nothing else, remember that."

"Alexander, _mea animo_ -"

“I know,” Hamilton cuts him off, and reaches out to grasp his wrist. “I do know, _mea anima_.”

Laurens wants to tell him that love is stronger than death, that it’s all going to be okay, because they are twenty-four and brilliant and together they are going to turn the world upside-down. He’s not quite that good a liar, though, so he looks around the room – force of habit, checking they’re alone – and kisses him instead.

“As long as you want me, I’ll be with you. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not without me, you aren’t,” Hamilton replies lightly. “Sure you can still sit on a horse after last night?”

“Hey, for all the rest of the army knows I was injured in battle. I can explain away the grimacing.”

“Yeah, God forbid you give me a moment to get the oil out,” Hamilton says wryly. “It’s all now-now-now with you.”

Laurens laughs.

“Oh, sure. _I’m_ the impatient one.”

“In bed you are.” Hamilton smiles at him, that sweet smile that leaves him speechless. “It’s the kind of behavior that could make a man smug about his attributes.”

“You can be smug,” Laurens allows. “This much smugness, no more.” He crooks his thumb and forefinger together, half an inch apart. “Coincidentally, about the size of your attrib-“

“That’s not what you were saying last night,” Hamilton says, a feral grin on his face. Laurens opens his mouth to reply, but closes it as he remembers vividly what he did say, and how Hamilton had responded. He lifts his hand to brush against a mouth-shaped bruise above his collarbone.

“Touché,” he admits.

“I’ll touché you whenever I can.”

And then there’s nothing left to do but kiss him one last time, then once more for luck, and go out to face the day.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Latin translations below.  
> Ad victor Laurea: to the victor the laurel (the prize). Also a pun on the name Laurens.  
> Carpe diem: seize the day  
> Dulce est pro Alexander amori: Also a pun. amori = to love, very badly conjugated (it should be amare). a-mori = latin-greek hybrid, not-to-die. Roughly: It is sweet to live/love for Alexander.  
> Original phrase on which this is riffing: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and right to die for one’s fatherland. Yes, it’s the inscription on John Laurens’s gravestone.  
> Filii: sons  
> Fratria: brotherland (also a pun),  
> Amica: a friend  
> Elutheria: freedom.  
> Dulce et decorum est pro victoria vivat: It is sweet and good to live for victory.  
> Amor: love.  
> Mea animo: my heart  
> Mea anima: my soul.


End file.
